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"I went [to the top of] Vehicle Assembly Building and looked down, and tears burst from my eyes. The size of this cathedral where the Rockets take off to go to the moon is so amazing."
- Ray Bradbury

Oxygen Fountain  
  A small factory for making oxygen on the Martian surface.  

Making oxygen is the trick. Cracking water - hydrolysis - is comparatively easy; CO2 and oxidized dust take more energy and time. That's why we need fountains. Fountains are big, often the size of a semi cab... They plop down on the Red and if the dust is deep enough - if they're not on impenetrable hardpan - they burrow in and almost immediately pop out solar collectors and extraction vanes and whirl the vanes to collect moisture from the air.
Technovelgy from War Dogs, by Greg Bear.
Published by Orbit in 2014
Additional resources -

Compare to vaporators from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from War Dogs
  More Ideas and Technology by Greg Bear
  Tech news articles related to War Dogs
  Tech news articles related to works by Greg Bear

Oxygen Fountain-related news articles:
  - NASA Wants To Make Oxygen On Mars
  - NASA MOXIE Extracts Oxygen From Mars' Air

Articles related to Space Tech
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn
Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail?

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Science Fiction in the News

Brin's 1990 Novel Earth Still Full Of Predictions
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'

Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'

Microsoft VASA-1 Creates Personal Video From A Photo
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'

Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'

Bespoke Environment Music From AIs
'Call 'em Winter Mute," said the other, making it two words.'

Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'

SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'

Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'

NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'

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